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Booming in the Gulf

Friday, 22 April 2016 11:42am

How does the Gulf sound?

"The noise levels we've seen in the Gulf of Mexico are out of control, they are the highest we've seen anywhere in the world" -Kait Fraser

We caught up with Kait Fraser at the GOMRI 2016 conference in Tampa, Fl, and you can listen here. Kait presented her findings on the sounds of whales, dolphins, ships and seismic crews in the Gulf of Mexico. The Scripps Ocean Institute's research is the first to use passive acoustic monitoring in the Gulf and, while Kait and colleagues are hearing more dolphins, Sperm Whales, Pan Tropical Dolphins, Russo's dolphins, than have ever been seen from ships, there are some sounds that endanger the dolphins hearing.

Greenpeace has produced a video on the impacts of seismic exploration, so you yourself can hear the underwater noise here.

There is so much to hear down below, and Kait explains the process of lowering a device to the bottom, as well as how the sounds can tell the story of season dolphin and whale migration. She also explains the discovery of a whale call previously unknown to science.